Chess Olympiad: Gukesh, Raunak help India B beat top seeds USA

In an otherwise sorry day for India, teen Grandmasters Dommaraju Gukesh and Raunak Sadhwani starred with wins over Fabiano Caruana and Dominguez Lienier respectively as the young India B team beat the top seeds USA 3-1 in the round 8 clash of the ongoing Chess Olympiad 2022.

The USA team with four super GMs were schooled by the Indian teenagers after Nihal Sarin and R Praggnanandhaa held GM Levon Aronian and GM Wesly So for draws before Gukesh and Sadhwani struck.

With this win the 16-year-old Gukesh has extended his streak to 8 wins out of 8 matches and has also broken into the Top 20 rated chess players in the world.

On the other hand, the India A team in the open section fell to a 1.5-2.5 loss to the team from Armenia. While Vidit Gujrathi, Arjun Erigasi and SL Narayanan all drew their respective games, Pentala Harikrishna fell to loss against Gabriel Sargissian with the black pieces on the top board.

The India C team, too, fell to a 1-3 defeat against Peru, courtesy loses to GM Surya Sekhar Ganguly and GM Abhijeet Gupta.

In the women's section, the India A team was held to a 2-2 draw by Ukraine after all the four matches in the tie ended in draws.

While the India B team struck with a 3.5-0.5 win over Croatia, thanks to wins from Vantika Agarwal, Padmini Rout and Bhakti Kulkarni, the India C team suffered yet another loss - this time going down 1-3 to the team from Poland.